UPDATE: Sam Reinhart signs 2-year extension -- $3.65MM per year

[Hoss]

17 minutes ago, WildCard said:

Yay, more race talk ?

Anyways.

Yeah the 5v5 stuff with Reinhart is both really surprising and concerning. I wonder if he was at least producing scoring opportunities at 5v5 or not 

I’m mostly optimistic and still not really holding anyone too much to the stats from these atrocious teams unless they were consistently playing with only the top players on the team and weren’t bombarded exclusively with the opponent’s best. That’d take some extra time to figure out here.

[mjd1001]

29 minutes ago, GASabresIUFAN said:

For a team that was dead last in 5 on 5 scoring last season by a wide margin Reinhart’s production is a huge problem.  That is one of the reasons why Jack has a long-term deal and Samson a bridge deal.  2nd overall pick are supposed to be just PP specialists.

First of all, I'll say I like Reinhart. But, I agree with a lot of what you say.  I can see this contract as a 'trial' to see if he had any further development, but more so as one that is very tradeable.

While i like Reinhart, he is not a good skater, and for his entire career his production is below average for 5-on-5, and he hasn't proven to be an asset penalty killing.  I think JBots would probably rather have a few other guys with speed and even strength scoring as part of his top 5 or 6 salaries long term on this team, and then fill the rest of the roster with other speedy guys.

Unless Reinhart shows he can score close to 20 even strength goals in a season....then I'm not sure he is here long term.

[LGR4GM]

Yes, Reinhart did have good possession stats with or without ROR. I wonder how much ROR impacted Reinhart's ability to score at ES. ROR was not a creative player IMPO. 

[WildCard]

Flagg, where them fancy charts at?

[LGR4GM]

11 minutes ago, WildCard said:

Flagg, where them fancy charts at?

I looked it up. At even strength (5v5, 4v4, 3v3) CF%

ROR with Reinhart = 56.26%

Reinhart without ROR = 48.33%

ROR without Reinhart = 46.38%

Edited September 20, 2018 by LGR4GM

[LGR4GM]

ROR w/ out Reinhart sees his scoring chances drop from 55.31% with to 44.62%

Reinhart w/ out ROR sees his scoring chances drop from 55.31% to 50%

 

They were better together than apart but Reinhart definitely was a positive influence on ROR. What can we make of this? Hard to say but Reinhart could see more offense or he could see less if his line struggles defensive without ROR. Personally I think a line of Skinner - Mitts - Reinhart might be fun to watch. 

[Randall Flagg]

It's worth noting too that a large chunk of Sam's time without ROR had him centering, like, Griffith Pouliot and Moulson, at least early in the season. later on his non ROR time was with Jack.

This chart shows shot shares for players when they play with Sam (their number in black) versus when they play without Sam (their number in red). 

GF%, which is normalized plus minus (and thus inherently even strength), shows that all Sabres except Kane and Erod (small sample size - one more goal for each would flip the script) and Beaulieu/Gorges (bad hockey player) improve in that category with Sam versus when they aren't with Sam. Usually by quite a lot. I don't have a great way to show this - the spreadsheet is large. it's on Naturalstattrick.com, go to player index, search for Sam, and click the "teammates" button and play around.

That's where I get the "everyone's better at ES with him" - the shots improve and the goals for and against, at least relative to each other, improve. 

The chart below shows his effect on the team overall at even strength. We score a lot more, even if we don't improve in GA (my apologies if I've claimed that) and improve in shots both for and against dramatically. Which is why it's weird his 5v5 production is so low. This happens no matter what line he's on, really, unless he's with like Griffiths and Moulson, which is excusable. So even if he doesn't have the pointzzzz he makes us a better player, directly or indirectly driving play in a positive way. 

It would be remiss to both lament our 5v5 play and call Sam a PP specialist. He's one of the only good things about our 5v5 play. 

Edited September 20, 2018 by Randall Flagg

[WildCard]

And that's what we pay you for Flagg. Beauty

[LGR4GM]

To be accurate, and I may be reading your charts wrong, those charts are for 5v5 not all of even strength. Just a nitpick but something to keep in mind. 

[Randall Flagg]

13 minutes ago, LGR4GM said:

To be accurate, and I may be reading your charts wrong, those charts are for 5v5 not all of even strength. Just a nitpick but something to keep in mind. 

I just checked out of curiosity, and 98.7% of Sam's even strength minutes were 5v5. 

[WildCard]

7 minutes ago, Randall Flagg said:

I just checked out of curiosity, and 98.7% of Sam's even strength minutes were 5v5. 

Wonder if that's high or the norm for most players, excluding special teams of course

[Randall Flagg]

1 minute ago, WildCard said:

 Wonder if that's high or the norm for most players, excluding special teams of course

It was 18% of our team's non 5v5 ES minutes, which is less than you'd expect even if we were to roll 4 lines, much less skew towards our better players, probably because he's not super quick and you want speed out there for 4v4/3v3 minutes.

[That Aud Smell]

1 hour ago, Randall Flagg said:

<snip>

We score a lot more, even if we don't improve in GA (my apologies if I've claimed that) and improve in shots both for and against dramatically. Which is why it's weird his 5v5 production is so low. This happens no matter what line he's on, really, unless he's with like Griffiths and Moulson, which is excusable.

First:

 

Second: What's the SH% like? (PDO?)

Edited September 20, 2018 by That Aud Smell

[Randall Flagg]

6 minutes ago, That Aud Smell said:

First:

 

Second: What's the SH% like? (PDO?)

His on-ice shooting percentage dipped a little bit, but not drastically, the PDO was low but that was more due to save percentage.  

I don't see anything to suggest he's in for a huge bump in ES scoring. I don't have real hockey fresh in my mind to postulate why the discrepancy occurs, it'll be something to watch for, but I'm not super worried about it either. Counting stats like that will keep his contract lower than it could be, while we still get positive effects that go beyond his specific point totals.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Randall Flagg

[LGR4GM]

1 hour ago, Randall Flagg said:

I just checked out of curiosity, and 98.7% of Sam's even strength minutes were 5v5. 

That's not the point. The point is that his stats go up when you account for that 1%.

A lot can happen in 14 minutes if 4v4 or 3v3. 

Also my original comment was for accuracy. 

[Randall Flagg]

Just now, LGR4GM said:

That's not the point. The point is that his stats go up when you account for that 1%.

A lot can happen in 14 minutes if 4v4 or 3v3. 

Also my original comment was for accuracy. 

I was just providing the exact number so we can know exactly how accurate those charts are. 

If Sam played those minutes like the best player in the league or like the worst player in the league, it wouldn't meaningfully alter his other charts which i've posted, so we know that we can use his 5v5 numbers without sweating the difference.

[LGR4GM]

Just now, Randall Flagg said:

I was just providing the exact number so we can know exactly how accurate those charts are. 

Fully accurate if you're talking 5v5

[That Aud Smell]

1 hour ago, Randall Flagg said:

His on-ice shooting percentage dipped a little bit, but not drastically, the PDO was low but that was more due to save percentage.  

And that SH% of those with whom he plays while they're playing together?

[Randall Flagg]

No idea how to find that

[Andrew Amerk]

All these fancy stats, but where are the real important facts?

On those days where 48% of his goals came on PP, what did he eat for breakfast? What about the 5v5 days where he got the other 52%? What was his breakfast those days?

On days that he didn’t score at all, what did he eat for breakfast? 

They say that breakfast is the MOST important meal of the day, so I think we need some more info here. 

[Hank]

6 minutes ago, Andrew Amerk said:

All these fancy stats, but where are the real important facts?

On those days where 48% of his goals came on PP, what did he eat for breakfast? What about the 5v5 days where he got the other 52%? What was his breakfast those days?

On days that he didn’t score at all, what did he eat for breakfast? 

They say that breakfast is the MOST important meal of the day, so I think we need some more info here. 

I like the fancy stats very much and appreciate the people who put the time and effort into the charts, but this made me laugh. ?

[North Buffalo]

Sam is back to tipping in shots: 

 

[Taro T]

2 hours ago, North Buffalo said:

Sam is back to tipping in shots: 

 

So, then it was Nylander getting the benefit from Reinhart being out of the lineup?  He had been on Berglund's line initially.

Who's in Sheary's spot on Mittelstadt's line at present?

[spndnchz]

On 7/3/2018 at 10:19 AM, Alkoholist said:

It's 7 years or age 27. Reinhart has 4 rfa years left. I'd either do a bridge of 3 years or less or give him an 8 year deal, nothing in between.

Prove it or lose it Sam. 

[Thorner]

On 9/19/2018 at 5:41 PM, SwampD said:

I hope, for his sake, that it is laden with incentives, cuz that seems like a really good deal for the Sabres.

It certainly is. Play well now, and you get a big deal later.

---

This is a great, value deal from Botterill (that we haven't been used to seeing a lot of) that I think says a lot about how he does business. 

It therefore says a lot about how Botterill must view Jack Eichel. To give him the deal he gave him, right off the hop.